Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 Game Review

PvZ: Garden Warfare 2 Video Review

While getting my hands dirty and artfully placing new shrubbery can be therapeutic at times. Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 takes gardening to a whole new level. 

There's some big new additions to Garden Warfare 2 that set it apart from it's predecessor. Including some awesome new characters. The biggest and most obvious changes comes in the form of a new Backyard Hub World and a whole single player quest line dedicated to the Zombies.

Rose is just one of 6 new characters.

Choose A Side

Both the Plant and Zombie single player quest lines are packed with fun moments and some fittingly silly writing that had me giggle on more than one occasion. As the Plants, you must thwart the plans of Zomboss and bring peace and order back to the garden. Flip the switch though and you're now taking to the street as one of many unique zombies, eyes set on garden domination.

Citron brings his own personal shield.

While most missions are centered around defending zones and surviving increasingly difficult enemies. Every now and then the formula is mixed up just enough to keep things interesting. One mission has you take to the skies in a plane made of corn, dropping heavy fire from above. Another tasks you, as the zombies, to crash and destroy an outdoor party the Plants are enjoying.

Most missions center around tower defense.

There are a few missions where the pacing is brought to a halt due to enemies being able to absorb way too much damage. But these moments are pretty rare. 

Boss encounters on the other hand were always exciting. Who knew being turned into a goat by a giant sunflower could be so much fun. While the narrative across both quest lines isn't strong - it's paper thin really. I was always engaged with the action.

Fight crazy bosses!

Welcome To The Backyard

The backyard is a well designed and large hub world with a base of operation for each faction on either side and some neutral territory in between. The Backyard brings its own set of rotating daily challenges and rewards with dynamic, un-scripted battles being waged as you slink around town. The daily challenges are standard fare - kill a certain amount of a specific enemy , use combinations of special abilities etc, etc but they also mean there is always something to do.

The backyard is a new hub world to play in.

There's even a never ending survival mode aptly named Infinity, which can be played solo or with up to three of your friends. Here you play as a mechanical Triceratops or cat and battle it out against the Gnome king and his henchmen.

Garden Ops makes a return, this time with new bosses and heroes to take on and is appropriately joined by Graveyard Ops for the Zombie side.

Everything you do in Garden Warfare 2 earns you experience points, which you can use to buy packs of cards to upgrade your characters with tweaked abilities and skins. There's a nice sense of progression here. But expect to grind a little to unlock all the character variants.

Earn XP with everything you do.

New Species To Discover

New characters bring a fresh feel to the battles as well. Rose can slow down enemies, and has a powerful radial blast that can take out multiple enemies at close range. Kernal Corn is easily one of my favorites. With a solid array of mid to long range attacks. He can be devastating with some good cover. Citron is also a lot of fun, with the ability to get around the map quickly in ball form and pull out a mobile shield.

Super Brainz is one of the new Zombies.

The Zombies have some great new faces as well. Super Brainz brings over the top in-your-face melee front and center, while Captain Cannon is really well rounded with long and close range attacks and the ability to take to the skies as a bird for some sneaky overhead kills. The Imps can be dangerous, with the ability to call in powerful mech-suits but have incredibly low health by default.

Play as a robotic Triceratops!

Multiplayer Madness

Multiplayer is where most will end up spending their night's and the available suite of modes offers a little something for everyone.

Turf Takeover, Team Vanquish, Vanquish Confirmed, Suburbination and Gnome Bomb are the main attractions. Team Vanquish and Gnome Bomb were among my favorites. Tea Vanquish is your classic team deathmatch mode and Gnomb Bomb tasks players with blowing up the opposing teams gardens and tomb stones. Take out all 3, and you win.

The online multiplayer is pretty wild.

As far as class balancing goes. We'll be updating the written review once Garden Warfare 2 has been out in the wild for a bit. At the moment, it feels fairly balanced across the two teams but the aforementioned Rose, with powerful long range thorn shots and a devastating radial blast feels a little over powered at the moment and the Imps are ridiculously delicate without their mech-suit. Two shots and you dead.

Bulbs Of Charm

Have I mentioned how insanely charming Garden Warfare 2 is yet? Well it is. The world itself is bright, colorful and at times gorgeous. And model designs are all fantastic, with each exploding with character. I can't count how many times I was smiling ear to ear simply due to an expression on a characters face.

This shark has seen better days...

Final Thoughts

Overall, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is a solid package, improving on all the criticisms the original game received. It plays and looks great and features a surprising amount of single player content and multiplayer modes that potentially offer endless fun.

Garden Warfare 2 is available on Xbox One, PS4 and PCCourtesy of EA

Pros

• Fun single player gameplay
• Lots of content
• Loaded with charm
• Crazy multiplayer

Cons

• Story is pretty weak

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 Game Rating:

Garden Warfare 2 is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Have Your Say!

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